Petroleum is normally recovered from subterranean formations in which it has accumulated, by penetrating the formation with one or more wells and pumping or permitting the petroleum to flow to the surface through these wells. Recovery of petroleum from formations is possible only if certain conditions exist in the formations. The petroleum should be present in the formation in an adequately high concentration, and there must be sufficient permeability or interconnected flow channels within the formation to permit the flow of fluids therethrough if sufficient pressure is applied to the fluid. When the formation has natural energy present in the form of an underlying active water drive, or gas dissolved in the petroleum to the producing well, or a high pressure gas cap above the petroleum-saturated portion of the formation, this natural energy is ordinarily utilized first to recover petroleum. Recovery of petroleum in this manner using natural energy is ordinarily referred to as primary recovery. When this natural energy source is depleted, or in the instance of those formations which do not contain sufficient natural energy initially to support primary recovery, some form of supplemental or enhanced recovery process must be applied to the formation in order to extract petroleum therefrom. Supplemental recovery is sometimes referred to as tertiary recovery, although in fact it may be primary, secondary or tertiary in sequence of employment.
Waterflooding, which involves the injection of water into the subterranean, petroleum-containing formation for the purpose of displacing petroleum toward the producing well, is the most economical and widely practiced supplemental recovery method. Water does not displace petroleum efficiently, however, since water and oil are immiscible and also because the interfacial tension between water and oil is quite high.